Asking for Help

I love this follow-up post. And the key here is regular, reliable help. Not family members or neighbors who help out during a tough time. Not people that you’re going owe, or feel bad “bothering.” At this point, I don’t feel that the children are overwhelming (I am really enjoying homeschool “preschool”) and my mom and cousins are happy to watch them if I need to go to the doctor or run an errand. It’s the housework that’s overwhelming me.

One of my mom’s friends gave me this advice when my husband and I were first married: “If life at home is becoming stressful, hire a cleaning lady. It’s cheaper than marriage counseling.”

And so, three years into our marriage, we are expecting again, and now that I’m in the third trimester, I find myself having difficulty cleaning the house. I am very behind. The house is a disaster and it is stressing me out. This is not “we have kids and I need to relax my housekeeping standards.” My bathtub has not been scrubbed in over a month (I am physically unable to do it now), and I don’t remember the last time I changed the sheets (I think it was when someone had an accident). All that bending over, carrying laundry, chasing the toddler, going up and down the steps constantly, etc. is really taking its toll and hubby is working very long hours lately and traveling. He helps when he can, but he’s tired too. And when he is home, I know he’d rather spend time with us than clean the bathroom.

I was worried about what kind of example this would set for our children (We don’t need to clean up own messes) but husband has pointed out that none of the children really are old enough to clean the tub without potentially drowning themselves and I am cleaning up more than my own mess with two little “helpers” in tow. When they are older, they can pitch in with household chores, but until that point, it’s really me doing most of the scrubbing, and it takes forever because I am slower now and I am still trying to supervise the kids. They like helping with setting the table, and they pick up their toys, so they are cleaning up their own messes in some small ways. I do feel a little weird and guilty, as in, I should be able to handle this, we don’t need a cleaning lady. Or, I shouldn’t have this many children if I can’t handle them and keep the house clean. Oh, the mommy guilt:)

In the end, we agreed this past weekend to hire a cleaning lady, once every two weeks, to do all those chores that are giving me and my pregnant back trouble. She’ll hopefully stay on after this baby arrives too!

And so, readers, I pose this question: How do you find a cleaning lady? None of the other mommies I know have one (well, that I know of). I really feel like I am waving the white flag on this one, and it’s not an easy thing to swallow my pride, admit that we are living in squalor despite my best efforts (okay, squalor is a bit of an exaggeration), and find some help. I do know that we’ll all be better off for it though:)

I like this post as I also like Juris Mater’s comment that you referred to and have mentioned it to my husband, who agrees! That is very hopeful as we are expecting our 4th child in 5 years in the fall. I have often felt guilty for not being able to do it all. I have to remind myself that for centuries, women lived in a tribal setting, many mothers, many children, many hands, much more of a community than the modern suburban world. It makes sense when people limit the size of their families because they dont have help and feel stressed, but what about those of us who want to have large families despite feeling “all alone,”" and have no help from family and friends who live states away? So, a cleaning lady/service, nanny/mommy’s helper def. is a good idea. But I have the same issue, where do I find one? The cleaning services, to be effective (at least twice a month in our case) are the same cost as a car payment…ugh. Perhaps one woman who just needs the extra cash? But do these people actually exist and can you trust them? We are constantly asking around and searching for that “perfect person.” And, as Juris Mater said in her comment, perhaps something else will have to be set aside (new clothing, eating out, etc.) in order to afford a cleaning service.. this is the angle we are looking at now and I think it might work! I like knowing that we are not the only ones that need outside help

It can definitely be hard to find good reasonably priced people to help out. So here are some tips/ideas that I have found:

1: Teenagers are wonderful. Seriously. You can call your local high schools in the area and see if any of them have “employment” services were they help place kids for odd jobs, or babysitting classes that they offer (the local Y does this as well). Or ask friends with older kids…their kids may not be interested but they may know some teens who are. We have teenage babysitters, but we have also hired teens to help do big gardening projects and this summer we are having someone come help repair our fence. This is a SERVICE to the teens as well. So many people don’t trust teenagers that the opportunities for jobs that we had when we were kids are harder and harder to find. Try them out and if you don’t love a particular sitter try again, we definitely have our “favorite” teens and some ones we use more for a night out when the kids are already in bed. Having someone on hand at the pool is a great idea.

2: Check out the local library, coffee shop. People often post business cards or signs offering their cleaning services (and sitting services, etc). I found our cleaning lady through a friend (and just be brave and ask, there is nothing to be ashamed of, needing help, and you may be surprised who already has someone they are using). But her card is also up in our library as are several other cards.I have found the national chain cleaning services to be really really over priced.
3: Anybody should be happy to come over and meet you and maybe do a trial clean (paid for of course) that way you can see if they will be a good fit.

4:Remember, this is help, it is paid for, but it is not going to be the same as if you did it…so decide the things you have to be a stickler about and just be happy it’s done for the rest of it!

5: We are also thinking of starting up in our town a babysitting co-op. Which would be for date nights, after the kids are in bed. We’d each get a night out a month. And one of the other moms or dads would come over and hang in the house, keep an ear on the monitors while we go out.

Good luck and enjoy that help!

Our help this week is coming in the form of a backyard summer camp run by some local high school girls. What a great idea, the kids are thrilled, having good old fashioned fun — today they decorated bikes with streamers and had a parade, and tomorrow is Christmas in July! Plus, I have gotten all the closets cleaned out and hand-me-downs put away, it is amazing how much I can do in 4 hours without the kids in the house!

Regarding what message having cleaning help might send to your kids….my family had a cleaning lady when I was growing up. My daughter now calls her Nana Lupe, she became that much a part of my life (she was at my wedding). I still remember being annoyed every other week when my mom would be telling me to clean my room because “Lupe is coming in the morning to clean.” Her point was that Lupe was coming to do the details that I was too little to do myself at the time: dusting high places, washing windows, vacuuming, soaping the floors, washing the bedsheets. My mom made it clear that it was not Lupe’s job to clean up my toys, move my schoolwork, dig through piles of clothes to find laundry. My room was to be tidy out of respect for her so she could clean it, and my laundry was to be ready for her in the laundry room. And when she had finished the laundry it was my job to go up and help her make my bed up with my sheets. My mom would always break for lunch with Lupe and I would sit and eat with them when I was home in the summers. She became a part of our family and my life in that way, and I respected her and learned clean living from her because of my mom’s respectful example of how to treat her.

God gave us community for many reasons, but one big reason is because we are finite creatures and we can’t do it all ourselves. We need each other and have to share the load, especially as moms who tend to want to “do it all” for our families and for ourselves.

Juris, I love the idea of thinking of this as a type of tithe. Kat, great topic, thanks for posting

I agree! My outlet is a cleaning service that I started when my husband was deployed and I have scrimped to keep it up!! Regarding finding cleaning help I have asked friends for recommendations and have always used real companies. I think the tax implications are something like if you pay someone for more than $500 worth of work in a year you have to start paying taxes etc. to be all legit. I didn’t want to mess with all that so I went the real company route. I found if you locked into a contract prices are much lower than when you just have them come for a one time visit (ie someone gave you a gift certificate.). Any good cleaning company should come and give you an estimate! Granted prices are going to vary depending on where you live….I live in a smaller town now and it is much cheaper!!

When my children were young we always had some type of help, whether it was a paid, regular week day sitter to a college girl home for summer, or the cleaning lady, the neighborhood mother’s helper. We even had a live-in au pair after the birth of our last child. All these things were necessary at the time.

I guess the hardest thing I endured when we had help was the comments from other mothers who were in similar situations as mine and didn’t have help. It would bother me when my friends would make snide comments like “If only I had a sitter than I could get my nails done!” or some other nonsense. And although I suspected that they were probably jealous, it still hurt my feelings, and I didn’t want to appear to them that I was “above them” or had more money, or whatever. But the fact was, I needed help and we paid for it. And we sacrificed other things to pay for the help.

These years do not last forever. I am now the sole cleaner of my house. I haven’t had to hire a sitter in 2 years, since my oldest is almost 15. Sadly, my father passed away a few years ago and now my mother is available to come and stay at our house while my husband and I travel alone. This was never an option for us when our children were small!

My advise is do what you need to do now.

A lot of great thoughts here. This is always a good topic.

I will add that I think the need for helps builds over time. While I can get by for one week or even one month without regular help, over time I get more stressed and less able to be emotionally available to my children and husband. Because of this, I think the temptation can be high to avoid the help (I can do it this week without help, and look I surivived so let’s just save the money and not have help!), but this is a dangerous temptation.

A good priest takes one day off every week. God rested on the 7th day. It is simply pride to assume we can go day after day and week after week without a true break from our regular duties.

Gee. I don’t mean to crush anyone’s enthusiasm, but we never had money even for a babysitter on our anniversary. When my oldest was about seven we paid the kids $2 each to babysit themselves in another room, while my husband and I had dinner alone.

We did find ways to take breaks, and to find refreshment. It wasn’t easy. Over time I got better at that, and more resourceful. Over time I learned how to be more efficient with my day, and more relaxed about my to-do list. I wouldn’t *recommend* our way to anyone who has the financial means to get paid help, but if you’re where we were financially, don’t despair. It is possible to find balance and find ways to get through those intense years without hiring sitters and housecleaners. You can trade childcare with a friend every other week, or have a date while the young ones watch a movie. You can trade tutoring a teen for babysitting. You can wait until your child’s godmother, or grandmother, or aunt is in town to go for that (free) walk through the park with your husband.

It’s not ideal. But it’s not impossible, either.

Julia, mom to 5